


I might just let hell take my fall from grace

by utrinque_paratus



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: (until now only minor ones hinted at by Chapter One), Additional Scene, Canon Compliant, Character Tags may also change with chapter updates, Extended Scene, F/M, Fight Scenes, Gen, Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers for Lies Sleeping, Spoilers for The Hanging Tree, Stress Reactions, The Hanging Tree, and a look at how I think Nightingale dealt with all the stress of THT and LS, and for everyone who wanted more interactions between... everyone, this is for everyone who screamed when the narrative cut away from Nightingale's duels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utrinque_paratus/pseuds/utrinque_paratus
Summary: The first time, he let him go.The second time, he escaped.The third time, he nearly killed him.The fourth time, he was too late.Or: The four times the Nightingale crossed paths with the Faceless Man, and the aftermaths.





	I might just let hell take my fall from grace

**Author's Note:**

> The Hanging Tree - Related Chapters: State Six / Pleased to Meet You

_**The best revenge is not to become like your enemy.** _

_Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6_

_[Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London Novel 7)]_

* * *

 

 

Thomas had been very reluctant to separate himself from Peter and Sahra; he’d had quite enough of the disadvantages and mishaps that had occurred in past events concerning his apprentice and him splitting their forces. And for once, he found himself in unison with Alexander in their suspicion that whatever the lookouts had discerned to be happening in Martin Chorley’s flat had to be a feint.

But someone had to go and check, and there was absolutely no way that he’d let either Peter or, heaven forbid, the brave Sahra, face the unknown danger alone.

Especially if it was The Faceless Man, and by God, he hoped that he’d be there and not downstairs in the cellars of One Hyde Park – where Peter and Sahra were currently heading while he was tiptoeing up the remaining stairs leading to the storey containing the objective.

His surroundings were dark and quiet enough that he found his own breath to be unnerving, and it stayed that way, even when he approached the door of Chorley’s flat and slowly pressed a hand against it.

It had been left ajar and opened with a slight creak. Thomas held his breath, his muscles tensing up to be ready to jump, and automatically crouched down and pressed his body against the door for cover, shield spell lined up in his head.

But nothing happened.

After counting down from twenty, he dared to look around the corner, and found the entrance to the flat empty. A short corridor stretched down before him, leading right into what he perceived as some sort of modern sitting room – twilit through a glass front by the night lights of London and South Carriage Drive below, but not from inside the flat itself.

Nevertheless, Thomas knew that it was not safe, and that he was deliberately lured in. It wasn’t just the perceptively left-open door.

It was too clean, too easy, too silent, and thus - of course - he entered.

The confrontation was unavoidable in any way, and better here, separated from where his protégés and other officers could be caught in the crossfire.

Senses alert, he placed one foot in front of the other, trying to keep his steps as soft and soundless as they could wearing the heavy army boots while reaching out for traces of danger or some sort of _formae_. There was a trickle, like icy droplets of sweat running down his back, originating from the flat itself – but right before he could pin-point the exact source, the burst of a _signare_ that was as familiar as the fragrance of his morning tea hit him like a mallet to his face.

Peter, using an _Impello_ -based spell. Far down below his feet, but he’d known it was Peter from miles away – the magic of his apprentice so ingrained it had become one with his mind during their uncountable training sessions.

Thomas stopped dead in his tracks, and that was the moment Martin Chorley decided to attack. It was a clever move, he had to give that to him: Exploiting the very occasion that he could be sure that Thomas would be just slightly distracted.

Yet, it was not clever enough. He’d have had him with something more subtle, but what Thomas found moving into his direction was sizzling with energy and its _vestigia_ scalding enough to hit him several fractions before the spell itself.

It gave him the sufficient amount of time necessary to react. The shield spell he had been holding back inflated to form a protective bubble around him, and he took the explosive sphere racing towards him out of the air without thinking; forcing it under his control. For a second, his senses screamed as the _signare_ of the Faceless Man struck him directly for the very first time – it was all blood and pain and the feeling of that bullet piercing his back.

But he was used to the effect of demon traps trying to break apart his mind without warning, and his concentration remained steadfast. He jumped forwards, out of the hallway – alerted to it being a dangerous enclosed space but also painfully aware that he was giving up precious cover. Still, he aimed for direct encounter, and he found it by finally coming face to face with Chorley while still in flight.

Thomas slammed Chorley’s own spell right back into him, propelling it with additional force and sharpened to the tip of a thorn.

There was a flash of orange and red, and while Chorley seemed to be able to prevent most of the damage by deflecting the sphere upwards into the ceiling where it exploded, Thomas had been successful – if the surprised yelp was anything to go by.  

Rolling himself back up into a vertical position he narrowly avoided pieces of brick stone raining down while holding off most of the ensuing heat through his shield. Dust spew from a new hole in the ceiling like a thick curtain and hooded inside it stood a figure – slightly smaller than him but sporting a broader frame wearing a charcoal pinstripe suit, now with an additional scorch mark that ran diagonally from shoulder to waist.

He might have felt a moment of pity for the good piece of clothing, but it certainly didn’t last long.

“Impressive,” said Chorley, speaking with a voice which sounded surprised and annoyed in equal amounts – and somehow reminded him of his own. “So, it _is_ right what they say. You are indeed fast.”

Their eyes locked, grey against grey, and Thomas gathered the shapes around him, his heartbeat slowing and breathing evening out. His focus came to rest on the situation alone, spreading the tenacious and familiar calmness of combat throughout his body.

Chorley reacted with an excessive amount of power and created a shock-wave strong enough to make the glass of the windows splinter into a thousand pieces. Thomas pushed through it with a centred _aer_ -combination, forming a sort of spear racing towards Chorley – it should have been enough to fling his body through the room and to immediately incapacitate him, but he dived out of its course. The spell crashed into a wall instead, making it crack – the building shook under his feet, and it continued to do so as Chorley proceeded to rip some thick filaments made of metal out of the already-destroyed concrete, flinging them at him like ropes.

A pipe was torn open in the process, and water began to splatter into the room.

Thomas cut across the strands with a funnelled coil of sizzling fire, instantaneously melting the iron where it met, sending clanking pieces of glowing red material through the room and out of the window. He built another _counter-formae_ at the same time - it manifested as the contrary element, and ice warped around the remaining pieces of the metal rods and froze them in mid-air.

They continued like this for one minute or so, executing a formidable and deadly dance - testing out their opposing magical prowess. Like preying animals, throwing experimental blows to assess their target’s strengths and weaknesses. Reducing the whole flat to shreds all the while was, of course, an unfortunate side effect, and Thomas hoped that no one on South Carriage Drive was hit by the debris ricocheted through the broken window front.

Peter was very likely able to feel the _vestigia_ of the duel, and everyone on the site of the operation had to be alerted to the current proceedings. Thomas had been very clear on the coinciding _modus operandi_ – if he and Chorley should be engaged in a full out magic-duel, no one was going to intervene, to which Alexander had remarked that ‘it wasn’t like anyone would have the urge to do so anyways’. But the order had been especially directed towards Peter – his apprentice did have a special inclination to do heroics, and while Thomas admired the trait, he was also deeply aware of the dangers it carried on its wings, more so for Peter than for anyone else.  

Chorley was on a constant way backwards, retreating through the suite step by step towards a door leading into an adjacent room, keeping his distance. Thomas gradually moved to follow him, and becoming subtle in their actions, they both took regular half-cover behind still-intact pieces of furniture. Chorley had nudged the nature of his spellwork towards a more ingenious but distinctly not-deadlier approach, and Thomas realised that Chorley was not trying to go up against him in a direct fight.

Thomas’ goal was to take Chorley into custody – every second they lingered around was a second wasted and the rest of the operation stalled.

And Chorley absolutely tried to stall him, the diversion becoming even more apparent when the Faceless Man started to sneer between their exchanges of the _formae_.

“Don’t you want to go back to your precious apprentice? Or do you want him to take the collateral on his own, like so many times already?”

Peter had told him that Chorley liked to talk - to mock.

Thomas tried to ignore it, because these were empty words meant to derail him, but there was a sudden sting, a mix of fear and hurt, rising up beyond his focus, and he didn’t release the spell he had been preparing – nor did Chorley release his.

There was a moment of heavy silence before Chorley continued.

“One day, you are going to fail him, and he’ll turn away from you. Just like you failed Lesley May.”

The words reverberated inside him with enough violence to lead to something what Peter would probably call a ‘tactical assessment’.

Thomas decided that playtime was over, and shot up into a standing position, feet pressed onto the ground, making a motion with his right arm – ripping his fist up into the air and then swinging it in Chorley’s direction, palm opening during the movement.

Water spells were far easier – and inherently more powerful – when a certain liquid was already in the premises. Instead of producing the element, one just had to take it and bend it to their will.

Considering that the water in question was right now standing at ankle high and soaking the exquisite carpet of the sitting room, Thomas quite literally flushed his opponent through the doorway he had been retreating to with a raging wave that went as high as Chorley’s thighs. The man vanished with the torrent, accompanied by a yell and quite the exasperated use of curse words.

Thomas didn’t plan to give Chorley any kind of chance to recuperate, and he vaulted over the chaiselongue he had been taking cover behind to make a fast advance towards the room, intending to trap his opponent and render him hors de combat.

What saved him was the fact that while Chorley was ruthless, he was lacking the senses attuned to war – senses that still were very much present inside him and reminded him of the trickle of sweat he had felt entering the flat, only that now it was hot, sticky and carried the _vestigium_ of a sickening sweetness flooding his nostrils.

Thomas hesitated, wavering to make the second step into the darkened space of the room.

And Chorley, certain of success, set off his first trap exactly this single step too early.

His shield had been intact throughout the whole fight and he hadn’t been foolish enough to tone it down – it was able to take the offshoot of a salve of nail splinters, concentrated at the very spot he’d been standing if he had taken that second stride. Thomas first impulse screamed at him to lurch backwards, and that was the reason he made a roll to the side – he was rewarded when the doorframe exploded into flaming pieces a fraction later; indubitably, Chorley had expected him to act rather on instinct than on experience.

Thomas crouched down where he landed, covered by nothing but the wall behind his back and his shield while another series of small-scale explosions was triggered; the settee right before him might have given some superior protection, but Thomas highly suspected that it could be booby-trapped as well, and there was no viable option left but to enforce the _aer congolare_ with some additional _inflectares_ and to sit it out.

When the explosions stopped, he again counted down from twenty.

Nothing happened, and he created a werelight bright enough to light up the room as if it was midday. While the use of magic apparently didn’t set off a new wave of traps, it also appeared that Chorley had decamped – he was nowhere to be seen or heard.  

For one moment Thomas wanted to curse at himself for being inattentive enough to directly walk into a room riddled with enough magic traps to be a death zone. Obviously, Chorley had prepared the room and tried to lure him into it from the very beginning – it had all been part of the feint.

However, it didn’t matter now. It was of vital importance that he held his cool. What mattered was that he had to get out of here as fast as possible, positively assured of the fact that Chorley was on his quickest way towards the cellar.

Towards Peter and Sahra, and damn the _Third Principia_ or every other objective – his first and foremost duty was to protect them, the Officers of the Metropolitan Police, and the public.

He wasn’t stranded for long. In the end, he guessed that he lost about four minutes – one to make sure in which directions he could move without being immediately struck, the second to make sure that there wasn’t an actual proper demon trap built into the floor. The third to discern a pattern in the traps he found making his way forward or if they had any knock-on effects – which ones he could defuse quick and safely, and which ones he had to avoid.  

The fourth was only a matter of where he stepped.

It wasn’t at any level comparable to what he had encountered in the war, but it was still four minutes too many, and Thomas felt every second ticking away with a sting akin to a burning matchstick being repeatedly pressed into his neck.

The real urgency set in when his mind was flooded with a sharp mix of spices and razor blade – Peter, combined with what he now knew to be Chorley, and the instance he was out of the booby-trapped room, his muscles lurched him forward in what he much later realised had been pure dread – he sprinted through the destroyed flat and directly towards the Eastern Staircase, knowing it’d lead him directly to the subterranean garage of One Hyde Park.

Thomas took several stair steps with every jump, not slipping or stumbling once, and halfway down, he came across Miriam standing next to a group of officers and who shouted something at him he could not apprehend through the rush of blood in his ears.

Another surge of Peter’s signare, now mixed with the buzzing hives of Hugh’s staff - new flashes of Chorley doing something powerful – and something else, something he recognised, but only resonated within him like an echo from a long time ago: Lesley May.

Thomas rammed through the door leading into the Underground Car Park, right shoulder angled forward and with an added _impello_. The door burst open and crashed against the left-hand wall, half torn off its hinges.

He was met with a picture that painted absolute mayhem, shocking him enough to come to an abrupt halt.

Water cascaded down from the ceiling with the likeness of a catastrophic downpour. The way the remains of ripped out car doors were scattered all over the ground reminded him of the scene of some horrific multiple collision, and in the not-so-far distance, a motor had crashed into a wall. Next to it, Chorley was scrambling to his feet.

But even so, the only thing he truly perceived to full extent, was Peter – standing upright and on first glance unharmed in the centre of the main roadway, and something very heavy was dislodged inside him. For one moment, he noticed the odd urge to laugh rise up in his throat, because solely a situation involving Peter would be able to create such a scene – and of course, _of course_ he was alive –

And then, there was a stomach-churning twist of _vestigia_ , indicating a new spell of Chorley’s.  

“Down,” Thomas shouted at the top of his lungs, and a fresh surge of fear dispersed when Peter reacted to his command without fail, and the saw-blade of metal hurled right over his apprentice – directly towards himself. It was not like Thomas could _see_ it - the material was moving too fast, but he could _feel_ it, like a sixth sense attuned to the object, and he made a chopping motion with his left arm, building another high-powered ray of fire and cutting the blade in two before it could reach him. The halves crashed into the cars and walls to his left and right with the shrill screeching of metal against stone and flickering showers of sparks against hissing drops of water.

He knew that Chorley would try to do an immediate follow-up, but he was prepared, faster, and his ‘tactical assessment’ was still in place.

No games.

“Stay down,” he shouted, seeing as Peter moved on the ground a fraction before he wanted to release his own spell, this time something imbued with a few refined additional _inflectares_ he had learnt from Varvara.

Chorley was too far away for him to be able to read his expression, but Thomas could well imagine that he was properly vexed to see a drillhead made of silver snowflakes race towards him – and accordingly, his opponent jumped to cover behind a luxurious silver-grey Ferrari, not even trying to form a counter-spell.

Thomas took this as his cue, and he advanced down the roadway, forming a second drillhead and a third, aimed at the Ferrari. When the projectiles hit, they exploded into splinters of ice with enough force to tear the car to shreds, and Chorley re-emerged from hiding, suit now thoroughly torn.

It was exactly what Thomas had been waiting for. He had a variation of _aer_ lined up and was ready to knock Chorley out with a shockwave to his body.

But this time, Chorley did react - and was able to deflect the spell upwards into his general direction.

The whole Underground Car Park quaked with the effort of holding its frames together when the blast made contact with concrete, and pieces of ceiling broke away and started to rain down on them. Thomas extended his shield into the direction he had last seen Peter and a streak of blonde hair that had to be Lesley’s – he imploringly hoped that Sahra was somewhere with them, too, and just then he caught a glimpse of her hood, hidden between a second row of cars.

“Get to cover,” he yelled, and refocused on Chorley, having to trust Peter and Sahra to be able to deal with Lesley for the time being.

He had to drive his opponent away – separate him from Lesley and from a position where he could be able to hurt Peter or Sahra before he could begin a proper attempt to subdue him once more.

This one time, there was no finesse involved in Thomas’ spellwork.  Every _formae_ was a powerful and harsh blow, designed to pressure Chorley backwards down the road, rapid in succession to give him no time to think. And it seemed to work – making Thomas ask himself if Chorley was truly and already out of his depth and did not know what to do, or if he was again playing for something Thomas did not yet realise.

Naturally, this was the moment that Lady Helena Louise Linden-Limmer chose to get involved into their fight.

Suddenly, the smell of sandalwood and burning candlewax shot like an arrow through the persistent blades of razor and blood, and he felt her spell crashing into him before he could form a proper defensive spell, seeing as he tried to contain Chorley’s counter-actions at the same time. Although his shield absorbed most of what he now recognised as something he could only describe as a sort of sand-spear, he was still flung backwards – he reacted the moment he was lifted off his feet and formed a cocoon made up of a protective _aer_ -variant around his frame.

It had been fast enough to suspend his body in mid-air, only the breadth of a hand remaining before he’d have broken his back on corner of a pillar behind him, and he knew that he had overdone it when he remained that way for about three seconds instead of immediately descending back to the floor. Lady Helena and her daughter emerged from behind a red Volkswagen, and Thomas caught the eyes of Caroline – staring at him, still hovering by invisible threads - before he was finally able to bring his own spell under control and land on both of his feet.

Reassessing the state of affairs, Thomas noticed that Chorley hadn’t been spared from Lady Helena’s rough treatment either and had just recovered a defensive position next to a modern black Jaguar – now adorned with a man-shaped dent in its engine bonnet.

“It just doesn’t ever change. The men, senselessly butting their head like too-proud stags, while the real treasure is in plain sight,” Lady Helena said, smiling dismissively.  

Thomas knew that a false spark could suffice to turn the situation to his complete disadvantage, and he had no desire to find himself in a stand-off against both Chorley and Lady Helena. He stood lightly in his boots, his gaze flickering between his adversaries while speaking - waiting for an attack or a chance to use Chorley’s inattentiveness to his benefit.  

“I have no intention to fight you. Right now, I am not here on the behalf of the Folly proper, nor for the _Third Principia_. I am here on behalf of the Metropolitan Police and to apprehend Martin Chorley.”

Chorley laughed harshly, and Lady Helena set her eyes on him, a hidden gleam inside them which he did not know how to interpret.

“Are you,” she said, lips pursed. “Then you will hopefully not be offended if I just go and take my prize.”

There was a moment of incredible tenseness against the backdrop of a barely contained and furious rush of _signare_ – Chorley building a spell, but not releasing it just yet.

Thomas had his counter ready and at the tip of his fingers before Lady Helena could say “I _really_ wouldn’t,” and the only reason they did not escalate right there and then was because the honourable Caroline made a step forward.

“We do not want to hurt anyone,” Caroline announced, and Thomas knew he could trust her – at least much more so than her mother, who just then took her daughter by the arm and cautiously retreated into the direction where he and Chorley had come from, effectively bringing Thomas into the middle of their small stand-off.

He was painfully aware of his unfortunate tactical position while he turned his back to face Chorley, but he stood by his words - and he didn’t think that Lady Helena would truly be foolish enough to try and lay a hand on either Peter or Sahra.

Chorley’s gaze frantically swayed back and forth, apparently not sure of who he should attack first and simultaneously realising that he would not be able to take them both, and Thomas exploited that moment of indecisiveness to fling him back into the bonnet. There was an angry, frustrated shout, but Chorley reacted smoothly enough and rode out the force of the spell by rolling over his back and shoving the black Jaguar in his path the moment he came back to stand on his feet.

Thomas responded by leaping and sliding over the car front, ripping off the bonnet in his wake and propelling it into Chorley’s direction to try and use it to push Chorley against another pillar; hoping he could render him immobile this way. The bonnet crashed into Chorley’s shield and he staggered backwards while Thomas pressed on and made a step forward for every single one that Chorley withdrew – a metaphysical form of arm wrestling.

Their exchange stalled for a few seconds, and again they locked gazes.

“ _The Nightingale_ they call you,” said the Faceless Man, and Thomas could not remember the last time he had heard the title spoken with more contempt. “And _yet_ , here you are, rotting away in the confines of the Metropolitan Police.”

Martin Chorley narrowed his eyes and made a cutting movement with his left hand – a part of the bonnet was ripped away and slammed into another nearby pole, making it crack with a thud. The noise segued into another earth-shaking quake as his opponent tried to dislodge a novel set of metal rods from the wallwork.

He had to stop this soon - or Chorley was going to eventually bring the whole building down on them.

“So much power,” Chorley scoffed, “and all you can do is restrain it to a set of rules of an organization you only belong to with half your heart. You could be so much more.”

Thomas grimaced, because there was again something inside him that resonated – something that carried a tinge of shame. And even worse, he recognised that there was a tiny part that _agreed_ , even if he didn’t _want_ it to – and with a flicker of rage rising up inside him like bile, he flung the bonnet aside and found himself addressing Martin Chorley directly for the first time.

“Like you? If you truly think that, then let me assure you that I thank the Lord every day for the remarkable people keeping me from becoming precisely that sort of man.”

He reinforced his words by twisting a new layer of _formae_ into his spell. It broke through Chorley’s shield, accentuated by a squeaking hiss akin to the sound of inflaming hydrogen, and he would’ve gotten a grip on him – if Chorley didn’t decide to use that exact moment to let a car somewhere behind him go up in a ball of dirty yellow flames.

He threw his head around to look over his shoulder and saw black smoke welling up. Instantly, there was the thought of Peter and Sahra, and if they were safe, and it broke his concentration for just a second, but that was enough for his opponent to slip out of his cornered position.

Chorley threw an off-handed _impello_ -based procedure at him and started to scamper down the roadway.

Thomas couldn’t let him get away.

He had to trust Peter and Sahra to be able to handle themselves.

The spell was easy to block, a minor distraction; yet, it still sufficed to delay him for Chorley to be able to bring some distance between them before Thomas could begin his pursuit.

Good for Chorley – Thomas knew what it was like to run in dress shoes at top speed.

He preferred his trusty army boots and gained accordingly while trying to get a shot at Chorley’s legs with some low-powered, yet slippy fireballs, his shield extended before his outstretched hand. Random pieces of car, stone and metal ricocheted off it when Chorley expressed his displeasure by a renewed, but much more uncontrolled appliance of demolition to his surroundings. There was another high-pitched crash to his right, and new fissures started to form themselves in the ceiling with loud cracking noises.

And that was the moment Thomas realised that Chorley knew that he was done and had no other option left but to flee the premises as fast as possible - and that the danger had shifted away from Peter and Sahra and maybe even him.

Martin Chorley was going to wreck everything by going to attempt and generate as much collateral damage as needed to keep him hindered and occupied - and he was undoubtedly going to start by breaking out of the Underground Car Park and endangering civilians.

Thomas grabbed the communications device from his belt and smashed his thumb onto the power-switch all while running, trying to catch up on Chorley - who had stopped throwing darts of metal at him and had taken up pace instead. In the back of his mind he felt an enormous spell being put together – a web of _formae_ designed for nothing else but to destroy.

They were moving straight towards the vehicle lifts.

A flash of alarm shot through him. Thomas brought the squawking radio up next to his mouth, while powering down his shield not to destroy the electronics.

“Falcon One to Broadway,” he yelled – there was a loud and discernible _‘Fuck’_ at the other end of the line in response - “Chorley is going to break out through the vehicle lifts. I repeat, Chorley will try and detonate -”

Grains of sand spilt over his hand, and Thomas let the broken radio slip out of his grip as the world around him became engulfed with the grinding noise of a cataclysmic blast, mixing with screams and shouts. Grey powder had erupted from every crevice and corner and broke his sight of Chorley’s back. Thomas ripped up his arms, separating the dust with the gesture, just in time to see him trying to roll over the jagged ledge of an enormous hole leading outside - into the roofed, small road connecting South Carriage Drive and Knightsbridge Road.

Blue mixed with the harsh white of police-issue floodlights met his eyes, and he begged the heavens that everyone was on their way to cover. Still, Thomas was aware he couldn’t use an aggressive spell without having clear view – the danger of inflicting damage on the officers present at the scene was too high.  

Instead, he made a fist, letting his shield go completely and refocusing all he could give into holding Chorley himself in place, through nothing but an intricate weave of the shapes.

It was a last resort, and Thomas hadn’t expected it to work; especially not on another practitioner with the knowledge and skills of a master.

And yet, he heard Chorley gasp with incredulity while for a short moment, he managed to hold the webbing in place without letting it tear apart.

Thomas used the moment to make fast, deliberate steps into the direction of the ledge, his eyes narrowed, trying to further bend the _formae_ to drag Chorley back down underground. But then, there was the ripping sound of a blade cutting through cloth stretched to a breaking point, and Martin Chorley moved and disappeared behind the ledge.

By that time however, Thomas was in such proximity to give close chase and vaulted up the debris-riddled slope in one go, the take-off enhanced through a useful spell he had been taught in his seventh form. He came to a stand in the middle of the driveway; knees slightly bent and gathering his shield back up in the process.

Then time slowed down, because that was when he spotted the fortunately vacant 4500 lbs police vehicle sail through the air – right towards him and the officers in the back.

His masters had always preached that when moving inanimate objects, weight was always a secondary property to contemplate. What mattered was the urgency of the situation, determining the time one had to react – directly influencing how fast and precise the shapes had to be applied.

It would be futile effort to suspend the van in mid-air. It would cost too much energy, and too much time, and the van had far too much traction for him to stop it before it would hit the officers behind him.

A female voice yelled to get out of the way.

He did not – he reacted without thinking.

Thomas stretched out his arms towards the vehicle, and his _formae_ collided with those of Chorley – he felt it like barbed wire warping through the air and scratching over his face in a gush of blooded dust, digging into his flesh, scraping against his bones.

It felt like pain and death and screaming when he forced his own shapes against those of the Faceless Man - and then they connected, grinding together like two incompatible cogwheels - and when they did, he _gripped_ , pushing his palms against burning steel - and with a backwards rip of his shoulders, the van was yanked over his head.

Later, he was told that the van came to an earth-shaking stand on its four wheels, axles broken, but still perfectly aligned with the edges of the small road, in a safe distance of at least two metres towards every officer in the vicinity. And to an even bigger surprise, no one had been hurt, or even just scratched by the flying debris of plastic and metal – as if an invisible bell had been put over them.

But Thomas could only recall an enormous crash somewhere behind him, swallowing up everything else that might have been going on.

At the edge of his mind, there was a twinge, something ripping and biting into his left side, but directly before him, Chorley vanished around the right corner leading straight onto the section of Knightsbridge Road which had been sealed off, and Thomas was running again, his legs moving on their own accord, faster than in decades, only one purpose, one target.

Chorley - his responsibility.

He had to stop him before he left the secure perimeter. He could see the main barricade in the dark, some 200 feet down the street, but he did not know to which extent the side streets had been cut off from public access, and Thomas was certain that this was where Chorley was heading. Chorley would want to vanish - to turn faceless in a crowd.

Thomas forced himself to go even faster, making ground anew – the rigid training routine he had followed since he had been shot was finally paying off. He’d have several clear shots at Chorley’s well-exposed back, but he knew that Chorley would be able to deflect everything he could throw at him while still being sure that it would not severely injure the man.

Chorley evidently didn’t have these issues, and Thomas barely plucked something out of the air before it reached its destination – racing directly towards his throat. The shapes reminded him of a delicate but paper-thin shard, and for a split second, he stumbled with the sudden effort to pinpoint and counter the _formae_ to prevent his neck from getting ripped through.

Another three seconds lost, and Thomas could just re-focus his eyes in time to see Chorley turn left into the small Knightsbridge Green instead of going head-on and trying to barrel through the police Van barricade.

He could have shot that shard back at him, an instant kill possible.

Instead, he ruptured the grey-coloured paving tiles leading into the alleyway and smashed them into Chorley’s body.

The Faceless Man fell, and Thomas might have been able to apprehend him, had Chorley not set off a decidedly unnatural decompression that made every single window of the alley break apart. It turned the pieces of glass into a concerted shower of deadly shrapnel - for him, and for the group of officers and bystanders fifty foot across, gathered around a small pedestrian barricade.  

Blood rushed through his ears, his eyes shut for a heartbeat, and the exertion of his instantaneous reaction shot through him with the shock of being subjected to the constant current of a live wire – like the sensation of tendons snapping inside his body, and maybe he screamed – but it could have been someone else as well.

Silence followed, and when Thomas re-opened his eyes, with his arms stretched out over his head to his left and right, palms turned outwards - as if he was trying to hold a canopy over his head – he found that every single piece of shrapnel hung suspended in mid-air.

He let the spell go and the splinters fell to the ground in a soft, jingling fashion.

Chorley had exploited the diversionary manoeuvre to scramble up and away and was currently underway to jump over the police tape of the barricade, the officers still too shocked to move.

There was a lurch inside him, a desire to hunt Chorley through the streets of London until he had him, wreckage and collateral be damned.

The man clearly wanted war – and by all means, he could have it.

But they had discussed this before the start of the operation, Alexander eyeing them – especially him - with his regular intimidating scowl while standing before the entrance of One Hyde Park.

‘I want to make one thing clear: We do _not_ breach the secure perimeter. We do _not_ risk any civilian life to this madness. Either you manage to twat the bastard before that can happen, or you fucking contain yourself.’

Peter would want him to follow this directive. But much more importantly, Peter would not want any more civilians to become exposed to the immense danger that Chorley represented.

His legs twitched.

And then, Thomas let him go, and a moment later, the Faceless Man had faded into the night.

 

 

After making sure that none of the officers and bystanders had been hurt and the howling of approaching sirens promising back-up loud in his ears, Thomas first thought was that he had to go and find Peter. But instead, he caught himself sitting down in the niche of an old wooden front door on 116 Knightsbridge Road - on the premise that it was a well-sheltered spot where he’d be protected from feasible enemy snipers while he waited for a possible return of the enemy.

Nevertheless, deep down, Thomas knew that Martin Chorley was gone. If he would have made just a minor attempt at a spell anywhere in the general vicinity, Thomas would have sensed it, even with his mind numbed from the onslaught of _vestigia_ he had experienced during the past hour.

The back of his head slowly came to rest against a cream-coloured wall, basking in the coldness of the stone against his sweat-soaked hair, and just then, he thought that a cigarette would certainly be agreeable – if only to slow down the rapid beating of his heart.  

There was a moment where he did nothing else but to stare at the opposite wall.

He had to report back to Alexander, but his radio was lying broken in the Underground Car Park, and there was something that kept him from moving just yet.

Maybe it was the feeling of the cool summer night’s breeze sweeping over his skin, making it easier to breathe.

Even without his consciousness still being oversensitive to any moving object around him, Thomas would have been fully aware of the two women approaching the stairs leading up to the front door of the niche. Particularly because one of those persons was wearing a bright yellow jacket with reflective patches and the uniform of the Met, while the other was fully clad in a London NHS paramedic’s outfit.

That notwithstanding, his body reacted in surprise, and with the sensation of a foggy haze being lifted from his mind like a curtain, he found himself half jumping to his feet when the officer started to talk.

Suddenly, there was the startling memory of Peter and Sahra, and Lesley May, and thick black smoke rising from the shredded bonnet of a car.

“DCI Nightingale?” the officer said, cautiously eyeing him from head to toe as he came to stand before them. He thought he recognised her from somewhere; most likely a Constable of Miriam’s unit.  

He nodded and was about to request her communications device, but the paramedic got ahead of him.

“Are you all right, sir?” she asked; her voice was deep and firm, tinged with a slight French accent, and a bright pair of amber eyes followed every one of his moves.

“Yes, I am.” It was an automatic response, spoken with a hard edge that fended off almost everyone, and he turned his attention back to the officer to inquire about the situation. Just now, she had a radio in her hand and spoke ‘We have him’ into the microphone.  

But it seemed that the paramedic wasn’t someone to be satisfied that easily - she had taken hold of his left wrist to feel for his pulse. Thomas was just about to politely, yet decisively brush her off, until he realised that his hand was splotched with a half-dried, rust-coloured substance.

It surprised him, because there was no pain, and he couldn’t remember lacerating his hand, wrist, or arm – and then he noticed that the left side of his leather jacket was ripped open and the dark grey shirt beneath it hung in bloodied tatters.

A flash of images flew past his mind’s eye: Trying to prevent Chorley from climbing out of the hole in the vehicle lifts - letting his shield go in the process - the van flying towards him - not able to completely re-establish his shield before he had to react – protecting the officers behind him.

A piece of the flying debris must have slashed across his waist.

The paramedic, an expression of alarm crossing her face, took him by his arm.

“Sir, I need you to go to an ambulance with me to take a closer look at that cut,” she announced and started walking without delay, leading him along.

“I am profoundly convinced that there are several other persons affected who much rather require your worthwhile attention, madam,” he objected, “and I am under obligation to immediately report to -”

“With all due respect sir,” the paramedic said, grip unyielding, “but I am not convinced.”

 

 

“Bloody hell,” intonated DCI Alexander Seawoll while climbing up into the back of the ambulance, which gave a startling wobble in response to his massive build. “You look like shit.”

Thomas sighed; he had devoted the last five minutes trying to clean his face, neck and hands, wiping away the different layers of assorted grime and cement dust with some wet tissues the paramedic had pressed into his hands.

The paramedic looked up, half kneeling next to where he was sitting for a better angle.

“Who are you?”

Alexander pulled out his badge.

“Detective Chief Inspector Seawoll, leading officer on the scene,” he declared, and then gestured to Thomas. “We –“

A pause, and then, a long-suffering sigh.

“- work together.”

“Is he all right?” asked Miriam, following Alexander through the opened backdoors and also showing the paramedic her badge for inspection.

“He is definitely under heavy influence of adrenaline shock, and that cut needs stitches,” the paramedic replied, finishing her careful cleaning of the wound and standing up to face the two inspectors. “He shouldn’t run around anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You do realise,” Thomas said, becoming rather irritated by being handled, “that I am sitting right here?”

“Yes, Thomas, we _do_ realise,” Alexander said, a vein on his forehead pulsing in an apparent state of annoyance. He looked back at the paramedic. “We need a word with him – in private, if that is agreeable to you.”

There was a little hussle, making it obvious that this particular request was not agreeable. Thomas’ wish to neither accompany her to a hospital just yet, nor to take any medication on the grounds that he still had to be able ‘to carry out a particular form of intricate work’ on the scene, only added insult to injury. But there was no other way, regarding the circumstance that he still had to at least go back up into Martin Chorley’s flat and defuse all the remaining active traps before the clean-up teams were able to perform their duties safely.

And both his own experience – and some of David’s more particular experiments - had taught him in many ways that _formae_ created under the influence of drugs carried the unfortunate trait of doing far more harm than good. If one managed to produce a working _forma_ at all.

Since the paramedic had then explained to him, arms crossed and brows furrowed, that she could not possibly allow that by the account of law and her own conscience, he had offered to stitch up the wound himself, right there and then, if only to give her some peace of mind. It would certainly not be up to the handiwork of a trained doctor; however, he had already given himself, and others, some stitches on occurrence, especially back in the war. Not that it had been a pleasurable experience, but he knew the basics.

It worked, although not in the way he had expected. The mere fact of his proposal seemed to shock her - and Miriam, going by the way her eyes widened – enough that she agreed to merely apply a provisory bandage and some padding to his waist; on the promise that he was to seek more fitting medical treatment in no more than the next three hours.

After doing ‘whatever they did’.

Miriam personally guaranteeing that she would make sure of just that seemed to have helped to appease her, and at last, the paramedic climbed out of the ambulance van and disappeared.

Alexander slammed the backdoors shut and turned to face him, eyes narrowed to slits and that vein still pulsing.

Considering his own state of undress – he had taken off both army jacket and undershirt to give better access to the wound – the uncomfortable feeling of being exposed took hold of him.

“What,” Alexander began, breathing heavily, “in the name of all the fucks I still have left to give – what the fuck happened?”

I failed, Thomas thought.

But of course, he could not say such a thing in front of Alexander and Miriam.

“I had to let the target go,” he replied while taking the shirt and sliding it back over his neck.

“We did notice,” Miriam said, sitting down on a side bench opposite of him.

“After Chorley broke out through the vehicle lifts, he did everything he could to produce collateral damage in order to compromise my pursuit. Breaking the windows in Knightsbridge Green and trying to kill the officers guarding the side road barricade there was only the last of his actions.”

“The fucker really did that,” said Alexander.

“Subsequently, I decided that following him through the secure perimeter would present a far too high risk of civilian casualties. But I am certain he won’t return – for now.”

Miriam shook her head. “This is a catastrophe. We’ve gained absolutely nothing.”

Thomas turned to look at her.

“Lesley May?” he asked.

A moment of silence.

“She has escaped,” Miriam answered.

“Where are Peter and Sahra? Are they hurt?”

“They are in UCH,” - and there was a flash of fear zipping right through him before Miriam continued - “but it’s nothing serious. Both got a bit too much smoke into their lungs from that car explosion. Better to be safe than sorry.”

“Although Sahra also collected a nice little bullet scrape from your American friends,” Alexander added, with an expression imparting that he absolutely held Thomas responsible.

Something inside him twisted with bad conscience. He should have never allowed her to accompany them, not without at least a fundamental ability to produce some form of magical protection. On the other hand – he knew that Sahra was quite capable to take care of herself, and it didn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if she wouldn’t have fought alongside Peter this night.

“Were they able to distinguish if Lesley carried some sort of book or package with her when she fled?” he asked.

“No,” Miriam said. “Peter and Sahra secured two storage containers of books from Reynard Fossmans car, but Peter already told us that Linden-Limmer got away with the one you were after.”

“That is good,” Thomas said.

“Good? That Linden-Limmer got away with that – what was it - ledger?” Miriam said, staring at him and her voice carrying an air of utter disbelief.

“Nothing about all of this is _good_ ,” Alexander snorted before Thomas was able to answer. “It isn’t just that our two main suspects escaped, and I don’t know if you _noticed_ , but there is a fucking path of major destruction through one of the most expensive shitholes of real estate in all of London, not to mention the damage done to Knightsbridge Green.”

“The _Third Principia_ isn’t going to fall into Martin Chorley’s hands without taking possession of Jonathan Wild’s final ledger beforehand, which had been his personal goal. I have plenty of reason to believe that circumstances could have turned out to be rather inconvenient for us if we hadn’t pre-empted this from happening.”

“A shame this won’t be of interest to the Commissioner, not when he takes a look at the fucking bill,” said Alexander. “This is going to be up in the millions. In fact, it would not surprise me the slightest if someone’s head is going to roll after tonight, and since you are the fucking untouchable one of us, _Thomas_ , my standard is set a little higher than _rather inconvenient_.”

Alexanders’ voice rose towards the end of his sentence, and Thomas knew that he was right. He was already recounting the fight with Chorley inside his head, and a million possibilities opened up before his inner eye – paths not taken.

He should have been faster, stronger, better.

He had to be in the future.

“I have gotten a good idea of what Chorley is capable of,” Thomas replied after a short pause. “It will strengthen the possibility of a forthcoming arrest.”

“Does that mean you think you can take him?” Miriam inquired, her voice grave.

Both set their eyes upon him – expectant - and Thomas realised that their whole conversation had been leading up to just that question.

He hesitated before answering, knowing that the whole approach to the imminent operation against Martin Chorley would depend on this assessment.

But one way or the other, there was only a single response he could give – simply because he was obligated to be able to do so.

“I believe I can, yes.”

It was a promise.

Thomas would do everything in his power to keep it.

“I bloody well hope so, for all of us,” said Alexander. “Now, what the fuck are we going to tell the press?”

 

 

When he came back down from Chorley’s flat, having deemed it safe and decontaminated of both magical and trap-related effects, Miriam was waiting for him and turned threat into action. She drove him to UCH to get the stitches – and to meet up with Peter while he was there.

“He was worried that you might do something stupid and dangerous, but of course, he never said it that way,” she told him.

For the first time in this whole evening, Thomas caught himself smiling.

But before he got anywhere near Peter - or Sahra, for that matter – his good friend Dr Abdul Haqq Walid intercepted him in the foyer of the Emergency Department.

“I cannot believe that you actually offered a trained paramedic to stitch your own wound,” Abdul greeted him, which again proved to Thomas that all physicians knew each other and couldn’t be trusted.

“It is nothing more but a scrape, Abdul. I’ve had far worse,” Thomas sighed. “Where is Peter?”

“Since I am in possession of a ten centimetres thick folder detailing your medical history, this could mean everything up to something warranting a stay in Intensive Care,” Abdul replied. His eyes came to rest on the bloodied and torn patches of his clothing, and he started to usher him into the direction of the treatment cubicles. “And I won’t believe a single word you say, or tell you where to find Peter, until I’ve checked you over myself.”

For once, he kept himself from objecting – over thirty years of knowing the doctor had taught him that despite him being endued with his own set of remarkable stubbornness, the effort to try and win an argument against Abdul was, most of times, not worth the price.

And history proved that arguing with Scots had never been a good idea to begin with.

When Abdul had taken off the bandage, Thomas took a moment to properly look at the wound for the very first time. It had stopped to bleed, but it was still an obvious cleave, and the edges of the cut were jagged in a way telling him that it would leave a scar for many years to see.  

Abdul did not seem pleased at all and turned away to conjure up some needle and thread.

It was then that he heard a voice nearby; a voice that couldn’t belong to anyone else than Peter, followed by a quiet laugh which he assigned to Beverley Brook, and Thomas found that he was at long last able to release a deep breath from his chest – one he didn’t know he had been holding.

Relief swept over him with enough power to make his head feel dizzy, and suddenly, his body started to tremble, while a stab of pain made itself present with such an unanticipated intensity that he immediately leant to his left, favouring the wounded side – he had to force himself not to clasp his right hand over the cut by instinct.

Naturally, Abdul observed him close enough to notice.  

“Thomas,” he said, “were you given any form of pain-reducing medication?”

“No,” he answered, and upon realising that his tone carried more likeness to a pinched gasp than a proper word, he forced his voice to be firm before he continued. “I refused. I still had to perform magic to clear up a location of interest after the initial fight.”

Abdul’s expression rapidly shifted between one of pure exasperation and evident worry, and for a moment, he seemed to be at a loss for words.

“That is – this cut runs at least three centimetres deep. I have absolutely _no idea_ how you managed to even walk into this building on your own two legs, not to mention how anyone allowed to let you go back on a scene before that,” he huffed while rummaging through a drawer, taking a syringe and procuring a vial containing a transparent liquid from the storage cupboard beneath it.

“You know why,” Thomas said – he pressed his eyes shut when Abdul sprayed the cool disinfectant on a patch of unbroken skin above the wound, drew up the pain medication and set the needle.

Oddly enough, he had never become accustomed to being injected, and his discomfort towards the simple procedure had grown over the decades. He couldn’t quite explain it – the little stab of pain certainly wasn’t the cause.

“Do I?” replied Abdul, extracting the syringe.

Thomas re-opened his eyes.

“No-one else there to do it.”

“Well,” Abdul said, exchanging the emptied syringe for the prepared surgical needle and thread, “you have to admit that’s not entirely the truth anymore.”

Thomas heard Peter’s voice in the background once more, and the pain started to ease away.

“Right you are indeed,” he said softly, and Abdul gave him a warm smile before getting to work.

 

 

Thomas counted twelve stitches.

Nonetheless, it took a re-dressing, a fresh bandage and another thirty minutes of further examinations until Abdul seemed to be satisfied at length, allowing him to stand up and to finally go and see to his charges.

Although not before being kind enough to provide him with not just a package of pain-relieving pills and a hand-written note on how he was to treat the injury in the coming days - including check-up appointments and some threats about what dreadful things would happen if he did not keep them - but with an unscathed piece of upper clothing as well.

It was a white modern T-Shirt, cut in a line which today’s fashion would probably label a ‘V-neck’, and carrying the conspicuous odour of sharp antiseptic.

And ostensibly such an alienating sight on his frame that the first thing Peter proceeded to do upon seeing him was to stop talking to Beverley and stare.

“Interesting clothes, sir,” he commented after a moment of silence.

“Not by choice,” Thomas said, sitting down on a chair next to the stretcher that Peter was half sitting, half lying on, and blamed the display of unusual behaviour on circumstance; his apprentice was obviously speaking under the influence of medication and inhaling the toxic fumes. And while the fact that he couldn’t discern any apparent wound on his body reassured him greatly, Peter did seem a whit paler than usual, and there were bound to be some contusions.

“Meaning… what?” said Peter, his expression questioning and the deep brown eyes astute – a sight he had come to expect from him.

He didn’t want to burden Peter with his injury, especially not in front of his young lady.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Thomas answered instead, and while he hoped that it was enough impulse to move over the subject, he still caught himself smiling when Peter’s face lightened up with a grin in response.

Following the exchange of some proper greetings, Beverley Brook left to make conversation with Sahra, who seemed to be residing in the adjacent cubicle. Peter used that moment to brief him on the full extent of what exactly had transpired during his absence. From the encounter with Cecelia Tyburn-Thames and the Virgins, to Martin Chorley’s little, but very informative speech about the Dark Ages, Reynard Fossman’s unsuccessful endeavours at both running over Chorley and trying to flee in his Renault – which Chorley had subsequently forced to explode from the distance – to Lesley May’s ultimate escape and Lady Helena Louise Linden-Limmer seizing the opportunity of chaos to acquire the final ledger.

He asked Peter if he had seen Caroline, and he declined - Lady Helena seemed to have made the wise decision to bring her daughter out of the line of fire when he and Chorley re-started their duel.

“And there was also the case of someone trying to squash me, Sahra, and Lesley for that matter, with a car,” Peter added with an air of - in Thomas’ opinion – incommensurate nonchalance. “But I couldn’t get the _signare_.”

“Since at that point Chorley had been rather occupied with my presence, he couldn’t have effectuated the spell,” Thomas said, and made a disapproving click with his tongue. “Now, that is something I’d very much like to have another discussion with Lady Helena about.”

“It’s all right, boss. No need to escalate,” said Peter.

But Miss Brook, who had chosen that moment to return with Sahra in tow, seemed to be in agreement with him.

“When you have that chat, I want to be there as well,” she said, and he saw a glint of wrath in the _orisas_ ’ eyes – it washed over him with the sensation of being swept away by a maelstrom, tearing apart everything in its wake.

Peter groaned in response. “Please Bev, don’t encourage him.”

Thomas sighed, letting his thoughts on Lady Helena and the _Third Principia_ rest for the time being, and stood up to greet their new attendee.

“Sahra, I am very glad to see you up and about. I heard about your unpleasant encounter. Hopefully the bullet wound does not hurt too much?”

Sahra only slightly grimaced in response. “No worries sir. I guess that’s what I signed up for when I agreed to go into that building with the two of you.”

“No - it shouldn’t have been,” he answered, “and I am indebted to you and have to extend my deepest thanks. Peter and I are immensely fortunate to have you fighting at our side.”

For the fraction of a second, Thomas thought he recognised something akin to astonishment flash over her face – which then segued into a smile.

“Yes, you are,” she said. “But thank you all the same, sir.”

Not much later, they were also joined by Rose Grant, who brought a packed meal for Peter. That seemed to remind his own body that there was still an untouched sandwich of Molly’s lying forgotten in the Jaguar, and that he hadn’t eaten anything since luncheon. Consecutively, he – and without surprise, Beverley and Sahra as well - found themselves caught in a rather compromised situation in which they all might have tried to pry some morsels off Peter’s portion, seeing as the hospital cantina had already closed.

However, they were not successful in their endeavours, and he took a few minutes to talk to Rose instead. Next to a flood of other things, she also informed him that the press had already bared its teeth – the police operation at One Hyde Park and a subsequent ‘gas explosion’ in Knightsbridge Green was headlining across all major sources.

A short while after Peter’s mother had departed, her son had fallen asleep, and Abdul returned to check on them. Nobody wanted to disturb Peter, and thus, after short inspection, both Sahra and he were designated fit to leave. With the additional order to get a good night’s rest and to take off the following day.

And while Thomas hoped that Sahra might have the opportunity to follow through on that advice, he could only spare Peter for the rest of the night, and it was long overdue that he drove back to One Hyde Park to give start at resolving at least a superficial part of the remaining state of affairs.  

Sahra was fetched ten minutes later by one of her siblings, and Thomas gathered up his jacket, preparing to leave as well, but he found himself being drawn back to Peter’s cabin one last time.

He walked towards the half-opened curtain - and stopped when he saw Beverley Book sitting directly by Peter’s side, and her head resting close to his, eyelids shut and their skin touching.

It wasn’t something that was his to see.

Thomas wanted to turn around at once, but he fast realised that it was too late when Beverley abruptly sat up – staring at him, her shoulders tense.

“My apologies,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I did not mean to disturb.”

For a moment, she did nothing but hold his gaze, and Thomas was surprised by the gentleness of her spoken words when she finally responded.

“You’re worrying about him.”

“Yes,” Thomas answered, and after a short pause, he added, “I always worry about him.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” she said, and placed a hand over Peter’s – a protective gesture, and Thomas could only guess if it was meant to exclude, or to reassure him. “I’ll take him with me when he wakes up. He’ll be safe.”

“I know,” he said, thinking of that maelstrom. Appreciating it.

Every person trying to lay a hand on Peter while he was with Beverley Brook would be beyond help, and Thomas was assured that he would not feel even the slightest ounce of compassion for any of them, because they would have been immeasurable fools.

Silence stretched out between them, and nothing could be heard except their breathing, and the quiet night-time background murmur of the Emergency Department, both of their sights coming to rest on Peter’s face – his expression was calm, almost peaceful.

Thomas realised for the first time how different Peter looked when he was asleep – he seemed young, and vulnerable.

Just when he shifted his weight, wanting to turn around and depart once and for all, the river goddess turned her eyes back on him.

This time, they were intense enough to make him freeze in place.

“I want your promise,” said Beverley Brook, and her voice was not gentle anymore. “I want your promise, as the Nightingale, that you will protect him, no matter what’s going to happen.”

He felt his expression go stiff.

“I’ve sworn an oath years ago to do just that,” he said. “I do not intend to break it.”

“I don’t care what oaths you’ve sworn in the presence of some mortal, or to the Met. Those are meaningless to me. I want you to say it to me, face to face,” she demanded.

Thomas knew that giving a promise to a _genius_ of any sort brought life-long obligation and commitment in its wake, and it was something that every master had warned him to never do under any circumstance.

Nevertheless, he didn’t hesitate.

“I promise I will always protect him,” he said. “With my life, if needed.”

 

 

Resolving a superficial part of the state of affairs included dealing with the Commissioner, summoning both Alexander and him for an ‘emergency phone call’ at 5 o’clock in the morning.

It went as well as it was to be expected, considering what had transpired. Implying that they did not face the threat of actual suspensions, even if hinted at by some ostensibly calm and amicable metaphors – but they still endured twenty minutes of something that made Thomas’ right arm twitch with the urge to produce a perfect military salute at random occasions, and what Alexander would years later lovingly recall as ‘the worst bollocking he had received in his entire fucking career’.

There was a moment of absolute silence afterwards, and then, a heavy sigh.

“I suppose you are aware that the reporting’s of this incident are all over the national news already and are expected to become international with the arrival of the morning post?” the Commissioner said, his voice somewhat distorted over the loudspeaker equipment of Alexanders’ car.

“Yes Sir,” Alexander responded, and while his inflexion was unnaturally demure, he continued to give him a side-eye that spoke of such an immense discontent that Thomas knew Alexander would never let him forget that this happened as long as they were going to perform their duties in an even adjacent proximity to each other.

“While I surmise that the public exposure had been held at such a minimum that the secret of… magic – isn’t in the danger of being uncovered, and that your set of cover stories will be able to hold themselves together, I think that the current procedures needs to change considering the obvious threat that Martin Chorley represents,” the Commissioner said. “The next confrontation needs to be more coordinated and contained. What is your opinion on this - Nightingale?”

He answered slowly, examining every single one of his words before speaking.

“I am in agreement about the danger that Martin Chorley represents, and that another plan of action is imperative compared to the troubles we have encountered up until this day. A use of special - of combined forces adapted to the nature of the threat would, without doubt, facilitate the procedures to come.”  

“A joint operation including the SAU? And focusing on a… Falcon-based approach?” the Commissioner enquired.

Thomas held his breath before answering – but only for a second.

“Yes, I do believe that would be a sensible course of action.”

“Then I will set a meeting with DAC Folsom,” the Commissioner said. “I expect you both at my office, tomorrow at four pm.”

“Yes Sir,” they replied in near-unison.

Then the radio gave a crack, and the line went silent.

“A sensible course of action? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Alexander murmured.

Thomas replied nothing and stared at the soft line of morning light appearing over the edge of London’s rooftops instead.

Destiny was a fickle thing – unforeseeable, striking at arbitrary and yet driven by an underlying purpose that only revealed itself with time unfolding.

He had known it since the forests of Ettersberg, and even more so on that damned morning he had finally stopped denying that his hair had started to become darker and fuller instead of fading away and that the ache in his joints had softened instead of his bones becoming brittle with years passing.  

And when he suddenly stood in the Commissioners’ office, swearing an oath to take on Peter Grant as his apprentice.

Right now, a sense of foreboding overcame him – the feeling that destiny was about to strike another one of its blows.

“If this is going to kill my career, Thomas Nightingale, I’ll hold you responsible,” said Alexander. “And now get out of here, because I need to get a fucking aspirin for my headache and then some bloody good sleep.”

Thomas saw nothing bad in doing just that and opened the door of the car.

Alexander let the motor start up with an aggressive roar. “Maybe I’ll even realise that nothing of this ever happened once I wake up,” he added, the words dripping with inherent irony.

“And a good night’s sleep to you too, Alexander,” he said, got out, and shut the door, aware that they were going to work together effectively when the situation required it; the last evening had proven that they could.

Their social compatibility was a completely other issue, and Thomas hoped they were going to be able to fabricate it to be endurable.

For their own sakes, and for everyone around them.

He sighed, giving himself a moment to try and let the mild and humid morning air clear his mind, and started walking towards Piccadilly where he had parked the Jaguar – right before they had started yesterday’s pursuit through Hyde Park. It was a distance of less than one and a half miles, yet he sank into the familiar leather of the driver’s seat with an exhausted breath of relief.

The medication that Abdul had given him had gradually started to wear off, the wound beginning to throb with an irritating persistence. The muscles in his legs burned, and a deep-seated exhaustion weighed down his whole body.

Even the sensitive scarring under his right shoulder made its presence felt by the likeness of every small movement driving a nail through his chest.

Without warning, a constricting sensation took hold of him – and his hands began to shake, and he felt pearls of sweat form at the nape of his neck, and his heartbeat sped up, and he knew that feeling, and suddenly, he was _afraid_ – and that was when he heard his portable phone making a jingling sound.

Realising that he must have forgotten it inside the Jaguar, he took it up from the middle console. The display communicated that he had received a message from Peter – he read it at once.

 _'Good morning Sir,_  
_I am at Beverley’s._  
_Hope everything is under control -_  
_What’s the situation?'_

Thomas lips twitched into a new, involuntary smile, because suddenly he knew that whatever might come, it was nothing he could not deal with. He could stretch the limitations of his body and mind far beyond of what he thought he was capable of – and even more so with Peter by his side.

He did not have to fight on his own anymore.

He dug out the keys from a handy inside pocket of the army jacket he was still wearing and started up the Jaguar, but not before typing in and sending a response.

 _'Good morning Peter,_  
_As matters stand, the current situation is as strained as anticipated,_  
_but nonetheless manageable._  
_I will drive over and fetch you –_  
_I rather think you are needed at Belgravia._  
_I’ll brief you on our way back.’_

And when he was on the road, his hands had stopped trembling.

 

 

By the time Thomas arrived, Peter was already waiting for him outside, and Miss Brook was nowhere to be seen.

Their conversation was sharp in his mind, already having left the sort of imprint he associated with a situation he was unlikely to ever forget. He wondered if she had told Peter anything about it - however, he had the strong suspicion that she didn’t, and he approved.

“You will take over as the official Folly liaison to Belgravia MIT in the hunt for Martin Chorley and Lesley May,” Thomas said after finishing a short recount of where things stood. “I’ll trust you to keep things level headed until I’ve caught up on some sleep and throughout Alexander’s and my pending meeting with the Commissioner and DAC Folsom.”

Peter’s first response to that statement was a sharp inhale.

“It’s that bad?”

“Well, we _did_ fail to arrest Martin Chorley,” Thomas said “and presented the Metropolitan Police with what is probably going to be the highest damage bill of this year. Needless to say, the Commissioner expected some… keen statements on our parts.”

“Most of it wasn’t _our_ fault, though.”

“You know much better than me that once it is about any kind of fund, the actual source of circumstance isn’t the decisive factor when it comes to assign the blame,” Thomas said, to which Peter only reacted with a heavy-laden sigh.

“But since the Commissioner does consider Chorley to be the huge risk to London’s safety that he is,” Thomas continued, “all signs point towards a closely liaised campaign to effectuate his capture. And not to mention Lesley, who finally proved to us beyond reasonable doubt that she is helping Chorley to carry out his plans.”

Peter immediately grew quiet, Lesley’s name hanging between them in heavy silence – just to the point where Thomas thought that Peter was not going to reply. Internally, he admonished himself for speaking about the subject that carelessly. Lesley May’s betrayal may have left a wound in both of them, but while his had long since scabbed over and he could observe the issues concerning her quite clearly - no matter where her true motivations might lie - Thomas knew that through her actions, she had pushed Peter out in the open to bleed.

And he still was, every day.

Thomas did not know how to change that, and he despised being helpless in the face of it - only able to stand and watch while his apprentice could not break free from what was left of Lesley’s and his bond, and because of it, suffered.

“I wasn’t as good as I should have been,” Peter said after what could have been a minute. “We nearly had Lesley, me and Sahra, on the ground, but I was too slow with the cuffs. This is why she got away.”

“I don’t think blaming yourself is right, Peter,” he replied, letting his tone grow soft. “Circumstances did get somewhat out of hand, and you couldn’t have planned with a lot of the ensuing events.” He slightly turned his head away from the windscreen to get a better look at Peter, and further added:

“Besides, please do remember that I let Chorley slip through my fingers as well.”

Then, to Thomas’ relief, a slight grin formed on Peter’s face.

“Well, good for him. Because by what I’ve witnessed, sir, you _did_ hand him back his arse.”

Thomas couldn’t help it and laughed – something he immediately regretted when the cut sent an acute flash of pain through his abdomen in response.

“I do wish I could confirm that, Peter, but it was a rather balanced act.”

At long last, he had the chance to recount his fight with Chorley to Peter, from the confrontation in the flat and the traps to their subsequent escalation in the Underground, and Chorley’s _coup final._

“Therefore, if you think you’ve acted too slow, then so have I,” he finished. “The last night has provided us with a lot of helpful lessons. Let’s improve on them in the future, and then I hope I will be able to go a second round and adequately fulfil your expectations.”

“No pressure sir,” Peter said.

A fresh, but considerably more pleasant silence befell them, and in the meantime, they drove back into the centre and crossed the Thames. The sun had risen in full and dipped London into a beautiful, reddish hue, leading to Thomas finding himself and his apprentice in a moment of shared wonder in favour of their city.

He was just indicating and turning the Jaguar into Ebury Bridge Road, one street away from the Belgravia headquarters, when Peter spoke again - hesitant.

“Boss… I know you were injured.”

Thomas sighed – he had hoped he would be able to omit this conversation. “Did Abdul tell you?”

“No,” said Peter. “It’s the way you hold yourself.”

It caught him by surprise, and made him remember anew that sometimes, he still found himself being not used to somebody who was not Molly spending enough time around him to know him that well.

“It is nothing serious, only a laceration across the waist. In a week I won’t think of it anymore. Please, pay it no mind,” he answered, his voice firm.

“How did he…?” began Peter.

“Chorley?” Thomas scoffed. “No. It was a piece of flying debris, ricocheting through my shield. In that particular moment, I had most of my concentration expended to protect officers in the immediate proximity and wasn’t quick enough to rebuild the hardened structure of the _aer congolare_. I did not give him the pleasure of a direct hit.”

“I didn’t think so, sir,” answered Peter, and when Thomas regarded him out of the corner of his eye, there was something inside Peter’s expression – a quiet, yet fierce admiration, warming Thomas from the inside, and one that he didn’t think he had ever deserved but was nonetheless glad to see.

He turned into Semley Place, slowed the Jaguar and started to reverse into some free parking space in front of the main entrance.

Peter took a deep breath and removed his seatbelt.

“Chin up,” said Thomas. “Yesterday, Chorley was prepared and had the advantage. He is good – but he is not invincible, and he doesn’t know everything, even if he thinks he does. The next time, we will be better equipped, and we might be able to put a quick stop to his activities.”

Peter nodded dutifully, and yet Thomas perceived that he wasn’t convinced.

“Till later then, boss. Sleep well,” Peter said, getting outside.

“I intend to,” he replied. “I hope nothing alarming occurs in the meantime.”

“I have my doubts,” Peter announced and shut the door, and Thomas, setting his course towards Russel Square - and despite all of his newly acquired sanguine comportment - found that he harboured doubts, too.

By the time he was lying under his covers, the uncertainty had turned into fear; fear of what might happen if they would truly fail to stop Chorley and Lesley another time.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually cannot believe I've truly begun to upload this story!  
> This has been in the works since January, but I have been very busy with University, and still am - but the situation has somewhat improved, so I've finally found time to sit down and properly write down the first chapter.  
> The other chapters are already in the works and in very various states of progress, and I will give my best to try and upload the rest of them with either one or two weeks inbetween, but I can't make any promises. 
> 
> This originally came into existence because I wanted to write down my account of Nightingale's duels with Chorley for pure fun, and then turned into something far more serious, and then took on a gigantic scale I still cannot comprehend myself - in the beginning, I planned for all five of the chapters to have the wordcount of that first chapter alone. (I still think I am crazy for actually going through with this, and sold another part of my soul for actually making it happen.)  
> But first and foremost, this story will, especially in the upcoming chapters, take a little closer look at how I think Nightingale dealt (or didn't) with the stress of the Operation against Martin Chorley in relation to 1) his own PTSD, 2) Peter and his bond to him in general, 3) Peter's developing PTSD, and also a look at the quiet scenes after the battles, and then I simply strung along the whole cast while at it. 
> 
> I have spent hours reading through the relevant chapters and taking notes, and I tried to write this, and the other chapters, as close to presented canon as possible - and it will stay that way. But if anyone might want to read this with a tinge of Starlingale, or our beloved V-Shaped OT3, I'll be the last one to stop you. 
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the time to read, and I'll promise I will hurry up writing the rest :)  
> As always, your reminder that English is not my native language, and I have no beta - if you find any evident spelling & grammar errors while reading, feel free to give me a heads-up! 
> 
> PS: I know, four times Nightingale came across Chorley in some way, but five chapters? - It's intentional! ;)


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